Movie News After Dark: John Carter, Doctor Who, Oscar and Other Manly Things; Also, John Carter

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that decided to celebrate President’s Day in honor of its favorite United States President, Ulysses S. Grant. The beard on that motherf**ker…

We begin tonight with some stuff about John Carter, a film that has been awash with a diverse array of opinions this past week, most of which came from a number of pundits who had not yet actually seen the movie. “I heard that John Carter is a mess,” they’ve said, in more sensational and agenda-driven words. Tonight the record has been set straight. Disney lifted the Twitter embargo on those who attended last weekend’s press junket and some more level-headed opinions have entered the world. According to Devin Faraci, “Hopefully the internet will be able to put aside binary ‘It sucks/It rocks’ stuff and look at John Carter as a movie w/ good and bad aspects … The best parts of John Carter are Woola and Dejah Thoris. A generation will be ushered into puberty by Lynn Collins.” Also, someone named @Rejects said, “I was told that I could now tell you that I liked John Carter. I’m no puppet, but I follow the rules sometimes. So yeah, Carter ain’t bad … Some truly vivid and massive special effects work, some kickass aliens and a needlessly imperfect rhythm. But fun.” Both are highly credible sources. One is me.

Fans of the board game Settlers of Catan and Star Trek, two groups that I’d guess overlap a bit, will now have the ability to unite two loves — if they live in Germany, that is. Kosmos is set to release a Star Trek Catan game that will be awesome. I will have to have our own Dr. Cole Abaius pick on up for me, seeing as he runs the FSR Eastern Europe Office, which I’m told is in Germany somewhere.

If the marketing minds at Disney have proven anything with their campaign for John Carter, it’s that taking vacation and leaving their first big movie of the year to the interns and office robots was probably not a good idea. Back from their trip, the folks at the Mouse House have teamed with Mondo for the release of an awesome John Carter IMAX poster, which shows off a little more of what this film is all about: massive, gorgeously rendered red planet scope.

The folks over at IGN have a little historical op-ed about the 100 year-old saga behind that movie I was just talking about in tonight’s lead story. Did you know that Without John Carter There Would Be No Star Wars. And yes, we’re talking about episodes IV, V and VI, here.

Peggy Noonan delivers unto Newsweek the saga of one of Hollywood’s contemporary bad boys and How Harvey Weinstein Clawed Back to the Top. After a slight fall from grace, the rotund and grizzled grump is back to stealing Oscars, bullying the MPAA and distributing some really goddamn good movies.

Seeing as the show is creeping up on its 50th anniversary — making it the oldest thing I will spend an hour in a room with — there are plenty of stories to come about the legend of Doctor Who. Charlie Jane Anders at io9 has a great one, of how The Doctor Who creators were a scandal in their day.

The LA Times has a fascinating exposé on the ranks of voters who will undoubtedly disappoint you on Oscar night. Did you know that 94% of Oscar voters are white and 77% are male. This explains a lot, like why Crash won that one time.

Speaking of The Oscars, IFC’s Tim Grierson has a great article about how it’s not who wins that matters most, but how they win. “I’d like to thank the Academy…” The Art of Oscar Speeches is one of the best, offbeat Oscar-related reads you’ll see all year. And I say that with the knowledge that FSR’s Oscar coverage hasn’t even started yet.

We close tonight with more John Carter. I promise that I’ll get back to other things tomorrow evening. Until then, however, I’d like for you to behold this completely badass fan-made John Carter trailer, which outdoes everything Disney has put out thus far. I’m sensing a trend, here. Perhaps Disney, like anyone would be, wasn’t quite clear on how to market such a genre-defiant film. This trailer is far more representative of the movie you should be seeing on March 9.

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